Hustlin’ to Denmark and Babu Eats Two Dinners
We worked from 8:30am to 10:00pm or so. My company is closing a deal where we’re going to start exporting some of our beauty and food products to Denmark. With the time difference between India and Denmark, later hours were needed for the faxing and communicating to get things done.
We get some take out snacks every evening in the office around 5 – partly because people eat dinner later here, like 10 or past – and they tithe us over. Tonight we had them at 8:45, and I ate a lot. I didn’t want any dinner. I got home around 10:45, Babu opened the door, and he looked genuinely happy to see me. He said, “Guda evanging,” and smiled when he let me in. I told him, “No dinner.” I went to the bathroom, washed up for bed, came out, and he was sitting at the table where I normally sit, eating what looked to be my portion of rice and his portion of rice off a plate. I mean this was a major mound of rice. He was hunched over his plate and eating with his fingers and watching Hindi music videos. He looked at me with an impish smile like a child who knows he’s getting away with something. Babu never keeps the most intelligent look on his face anyway. And I don’t know that he’s supposed to be spending his time watching music videos when I’m around, but hopefully he’s getting the idea I don’t care. He was probably happy to be getting two dinners too – not that he’s starving. Never leaving the house has added a round belly to Babu’s thin frame. Pictures tk.
I consider myself an American goodwill ambassador. Hopefully all who meet me will remember me not as an Iraq-invading cowboy, but as a guy nicer and more polite than the natives.
We get some take out snacks every evening in the office around 5 – partly because people eat dinner later here, like 10 or past – and they tithe us over. Tonight we had them at 8:45, and I ate a lot. I didn’t want any dinner. I got home around 10:45, Babu opened the door, and he looked genuinely happy to see me. He said, “Guda evanging,” and smiled when he let me in. I told him, “No dinner.” I went to the bathroom, washed up for bed, came out, and he was sitting at the table where I normally sit, eating what looked to be my portion of rice and his portion of rice off a plate. I mean this was a major mound of rice. He was hunched over his plate and eating with his fingers and watching Hindi music videos. He looked at me with an impish smile like a child who knows he’s getting away with something. Babu never keeps the most intelligent look on his face anyway. And I don’t know that he’s supposed to be spending his time watching music videos when I’m around, but hopefully he’s getting the idea I don’t care. He was probably happy to be getting two dinners too – not that he’s starving. Never leaving the house has added a round belly to Babu’s thin frame. Pictures tk.
I consider myself an American goodwill ambassador. Hopefully all who meet me will remember me not as an Iraq-invading cowboy, but as a guy nicer and more polite than the natives.
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